So I just lost my duo partner to the act 2 endboss - he died right as the "OH **** NO I DONT WANT TO DIE" phase began, leaving me to deal with an almost full double-hp boss solo. The fight took me 5 minutes and I came so close to dying several times, but slowly wittled him down while playing ultra defensively. Getting out of that fight alive after being sure I was as dead as my friend was such a rush, something beyond what I ever got from Diablo 2 HC. The complete focus required to stay effective in the fight knowing the odds were you were gonna lose a good 7-8 hours of time, and the shaking after!

This comes after losing my first char to the Act 1 boss, I was underleveled and stupidly decided to stick to vault rather than keeping smoke screen available, and died to one combo. That time, it was my friend who finished him off - so now we're even!

Anyway, there doesn't seem to be anyone else alive in Act3 on the EU servers, so I was kinda wondering how far people are getting along?

And if there's anyone here in Act3 on EU lemme know, its awful lonely now!

I started last night and got my HC DH upto skeleton king. Finished off act 1 this morning and levelled to 18 in Act 2 first few zones.
Then my friend finally got his copy this morning so I stated a HC Barb and played that through to lvl 19 (midway thru act 2) today also.

No deaths yet though I've certainly had 1 or 2 "oh crap" moments..in particular the Teleporter unburried champion pack that bombed me at the same time as a group of Vortex Beserker Champions in Halls of Agony.

I've got two lvl. 14s so far. A WD looking for Leorics mansion, and a Monk that's somewhere inside the mansion. I have no idea how far that is in Act 1 so please don't spoil it for me.

Well, other than to let me know if I should backtrack some and get a few more levels before I continue!

Only had one near-death, two packs of those big bull things that charge, one all champions, the other with a boss and his minions. They were playing pinball with my Monk and it just wasn't fair. Thanks goodness for that blindness skill, it's saved my bacon on more than one occasion.

Ploughed on with the Barb in co-op tonight. After the ramp up in difficulty at the start of act 2, it seemed to plateau as we began to find some decent rares fairly frequently. The rest of act 2 was a breeze. Stopped for tonight on lvl 26 somewhere through the siege in Act 3.

So far Ive managed to kill two HC barbarians today, a level 13 and a level 9 . My current HC barbarian is level 14 and in the Halls of Agony 2 before the server booted me offline. I have a feeling Im about to meet a certain Demon Ive seen before because the scenery just fits with all the torture devices and such and Ive seen some spoilers so Im ready for it.

People that are complaining the game is bad are crazy IMO - Ive been locked in all day and I dont wanna go to work tommorrow. I like everything Ive seen so far, the graphics are excellent, the difficulty is good, and the story keeps me wanting more.

Only drawback has been the server issues today because I was off and only got to play about 6 hours total but that was expected so Im hoping the next 10 years only gets better.....

Just went through the Archive section of Act 2 with my monk.
The monk is not very specified in skills yet, trying to give some use everything. But it looks like i'll be gravitating to a fairly high spirit consumption build with a single generator and a bunch of defensive skills.

I still have not been able to play the game past where we were in the Beta.

I was denied access after staying up late on release night. Woke up 4 hours later to do some leveling to get past the SC level requirement to make an HC character, but now at level 9.85 I have been met by another server crash.

My initial impression is that the game is the same as the beta, except now I have paid full price for it but don't get to actually play it...

I'm sure it will be fun once all these problems or resolved, but currently I am thoroughly frustrated... thoroughly.

I only had limited time to play, compounded by server issues and having to level to 10.

My first HC character is a level 11 DH, and I'm a few quests past the skeleton king. I'm currently backtracking to fill out my gear a bit though as things seem to get pretty tough. Also, I just want to explore a bit.

I died yesterdaÃ½ in Act3 with my lvl 27 Monk.
Huge pack of monsters, frozen enchanted and only a small stairway to fight them off.
Got frozen up and couldn't even chug a potion.
Made a WD after that. He is lvl 11 now and close to the butcher but I gotta track back a little bit to gain more levels.

Finally got my WD to Act 2. First leveled to 10 in SC and was surprised that my friends couldn't invite me, then discovered that I accidentally started playing on US servers instead of EU /(-_-) So I went for another rush to 10 this time on the right servers. Teamed up with a Barb and a DH and begun my first HC toon. It was fairly safe up until Leoric and Fields of Misery also didn't seem dangerous. But then we ran into a pretty interesting event which I assume is a perfect death trap if you don't know what you are dealing with.

We entered a small grove with a treasure chest and as soon as we opened it the trees around us came to life. The whole place was covered with their poison bombs in no time and health dropped really fast. Barb leaped away, while DH and me ran for our lives. Only then did I realize that the cooldown on the pots is LONG. I barely escaped, but DH did not. Should I say that after the encounter I was pumped up for about half an hour and was enjoying the game like never before. No way would I have the same feelings on softcore. Thank you, hormones :crazyeyes: